Sunday, October 26. 2008

While our stay in Kyiv was only concomitant to the tour to Chernobyl and Pripyat, the city seems quite lovely and the trip itself certainly wasn't uneventful!

John and I met at Brussels Airport for our UIA flight to Kyiv, destined to arrive in the Ukraine around 11pm, with just enough time for us to head to the hotel and get some sleep for our 8am start the following morning.

Now, generally every time I fly, I invariably lose my luggage. I don't know how, but I always lose my luggage on my return flight home, even though I'm always careful about checking in extremely early. For such a short trip, I planned ahead and prepared only carry on luggage. My paranoia tells me that there's some sort of airline conspiracy destined to make flying a miserable experience for me since despite my preparation the bloody plane was two hours late.

With the flight delayed by two hours because it was late leaving Borispol, we received some measly food vouchers for our operational flight — a slightly odd choice of words, since they could have simply said the reason was because it was delayed. John and I resigned ourselves to a huge Grimbergen pizza from Pizza Hut while we waited until the latest possible time to head through into the maximum security prisondeparture lounge.

Our flight took about four hours in a tiny plane, and despite some terrible fish-like food we landed safely at Borispol around 1am. There we were greeted by a horde of taxi drivers which initially made us suspicious, in particular because of the time. We fobbed them off and went to find a way to withdraw some Hyrvnia. While we failed completely to do so, we did however find ourselves bombarded by advertising from the ATM, asking if we would like to set up a bank account with PrivaatBank, sign up for credit cards, or get some really low interest loans. No thanks, guys.

After checking the cab driver's credentials and prepaying at the airport, we were on our way to the hotel at high speed, passing the Soviet-era housing block district on the edge of the city before having a near miss at a set of traffic lights. I think the driver was more worried than we were!

We checked into the dirt-cheap but still very reasonable Hotel Rus late at night, with some very odd characters lurking around the lobby. Have a look at their website and you might get the idea, because it's not too far from reality!

Prior to meeting our guide, we ended up meeting the rest of the tour group, including two very friendly Canadians (who didn't know each other before today), a pair of solemn Poms, a quiet American and an entertaining Australian couple from Perth (which I'll mention later), along with some locals. With John (Irish) and myself (Australian), this was an interesting mix.

Already off to a great start, we head off in the minivan towards the border of the exclusion zone. The drive took us a few hours through some small and very poor villages on possibly the worst paved national road I've ever encountered. Sadly I was unable to take photos from the van of little old ladies selling vegetables on the side of the highway with the NikonD40x I borrowed from Aline. After recent events, I really do feel like I should get back into photography and buy myself a reasonable camera.

Before entering the exclusion zone, we stopped off briefly in Ivankiv (Іванків), the last “major” town before soaking up the radiation. Despite being a short visit, John wandered off to buy some ridiculously cheap Stella, only to soon find out that alcohol is strictly prohibited within the exclusion zone! Oops!

What we saw in Ivankiv is, so I'm told, a relatively common sight for towns outside of Kyiv where the poverty line would astound those of us coming from the west. I was amazed by what seemed like an apartment building put together by prefabricated blocks of concrete, where the concrete seams were visible due to deterioration over time.

We didn't really have time to explore Ivankiv, but right next to where we parked was a slightly unsafe looking contraption which piked my interest; I presume this thing has something to do with the local natural gas supply.

From there, it was time to enter the exclusion zone…

If you're more interested in my visit to Chernobyl and Pripyat, then you might want to read yesterday's article instead. I won't really go into detail here.

We returned to Kyiv later that evening, and after thanking Sergei (our tour guide) for an excellent trip, the rest of the group dispersed pretty quickly, so we didn't really get a chance to talk with them beyond our discussion on the return trip.

On the tour, we talked extensively with Peter and Hannah, the two Australians from Perth. They were on a trip around Europe, and after wisely ditching their Contiki Tour (a concept I adamantly despise) early on in the trip, they're spending six months travelling through Western and Eastern Europe, visiting places everyone should. I'm slightly jealous of their freedom and determination! Go and check out their blog, if you get a chance.

Peter and Hannah weren't doing anything last night, so we decided to meet up on Maidan Nezalezhnosti later that evening for a few beers at O'Brian's Irish Pub. John and I walked back to the hotel, and after getting a little bit lost we dropped off our stuff and took another taxi back to meet up with Peter and Hannah, fifteen minutes late.

Since O'Brian's proudly announced itself as “the only Irish pub in Kyiv” it is somewhat odd that they were completely out of Guiness! Hannah had the great idea to switch to Kilkenny (probably after they had visited the place itself), and we didn't look back.

After numerous beers, some reasonable Calamari, and some highly entertaining geek humour, John and I decided to split the bill between just the two of us and not allow them to pay for any of it, since we believe they deserved it (and they probably spent a fortune on the trip so far as it is), and we parted ways. It was a great night with good company, and we weren't the only ones to think so!

Walking back to the hotel, John spotted a caricature artist on Khreshchatyk (Хрещатик) Boulevard. Having never had one done, and being slightly tipsy, I decided it wasn't such a bad idea since the only caricature ever made of my ugly mug was a South Park version. After paying practically nothing at all, including a generous tip, we walked away with a little memento of the evening.

After returning to the hotel, without getting lost this time, we hit the bar near the lobby for one last beer. At least, one last beer until that bar closed. However, there was another bar upstairs that was open all night, so there we went for… one last beer… or perhaps two last beers, and some food. Either way, we got to bed close to four in the morning.

We woke up with just enough time to stumble downstairs for some breakfast, which wasn't too bad. We packed our stuff up and wandered back into town, roughly aiming to be around Maidan Nezalezhnosti for easy access to taxis for our eventual trip to the airport.

John spotted a statue of Lenin (Ле́нин) just off Khreshchatyk Boulevard — the main drag — which I'm told is one of the last remaining statues that was saved by the communist party after the rest of them were torn down.

Sadly time was against us, so adventuring beyond the boulevard was sadly unrealistic. The boulevard is pretty lively though, as most of it is closed off to traffic on weekends and public holidays. Considering this road was obviously rebuilt after World War Ⅱ and with four lanes of traffic available in either direction, this huge street was probably envisaged to have proud Soviet tanks running down it during parades.

The road is very well designed, with the metro line running underneath and many underpasses for pedestrians, which means crossing the road is simply a matter of walking under it. These underpasses also double as real-estate for small shops, although we did find our way last night into the large underground shopping complex on our way back to the hotel. For some reason, though, the Ukrainians park on the pavement, rather than real car-parks, which means they also drive down the pavement, which I found slightly odd.

Equally odd are decorations over the road, of which nobody seems to be able to explain to me satisfactorily. They have Soviet symbols with text reading “CCCP (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) ПОБЕДА” (literally “USSR Victory”). I presume it has something to do with Maidan Nezalezhnosti and Ukraine's independence from the USSR, but I'm worried that even Ukrainians cannot explain this to me!

We spent a good half an hour checking out Maidan Nezalezhnosti properly, surrounded by a small crowd of people participating in some sort of health awareness day. People were lining up for free check-ups just off the square, and generally having a good laugh. Despite being a business district, this evidently is quite a lively central point of Kyiv.

With all the press photographers hanging around, I suspect that they thought I was simply another photo-journalist, and didn't object to a few quick photographs. Insert sheepish grin here!

Nearby, there's a statue that John is convinced is based on a Celtic story. He mentioned something about swans, but I didn't really get it. We failed to even find an inscription, so perhaps someone could clarify this.

Heading deeper into Maidan Nezalezhnosti, we saw a little bit of peaceful political protest, as is normal in any capital. The interesting thing here is that a lot of kids were involved. I was unable to make out what they were protesting about, beyond something about Russia being in disgrace.

John shopped for trinkets to keep his Mum happy, and with a swarm of women asking for help donations for sick children, we started to head away from Maidan and towards what we soon discovered was the city park, with some nice views of Kyiv's old town.

The park was again alive with people, complete with operational dodgem cars (a contrast to yesterday's very dead dodgem cars), and contained some interesting sculptures. We wandered in this direction hoping to bump into Kyiv's funicular (and missed it by about 100 metres). Sadly, we ran out of time, and we jumped in a taxi to catch our flight.

Borispol airport still retains much of its Soviet charm, complete with bemused security officers and a large piece of art. It also has two Irish pubs! Once again, the airport was out of Guinness, so John had to settle for some local beer. I settled for a coffee, which was apparently the better choice.

The trip was fantastic, and I hope to return to Kyiv for a proper visit as I really cannot say that I've really seen the place yet. I like what I've seen though and while the hospitality seems gruff on the surface, it really is quite good. This little trip has given me the travel bug again, and I hope to do more weekend trips next year.

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